Gas turbine engines are known in the art. The expression “gas turbine engine” is meant to include various types of engines which admit air at relatively low velocity, heat it by combustion and expel it at a higher velocity. Accommodated within the term “gas turbine engine” are, for example, turbojet engines, turbo-fan engines and open rotor turbojet engines.
A gas turbine engine generally includes one or more support structures, each one of which is adapted to provide at least one flow guiding passage. Moreover, a support structure may generally include one or more load carrying members extending between an inner housing and an outer housing. A support structure may be adapted to be moveable, e.g. rotatable, or fixed in relation to other portions of the gas turbine engine.
Traditionally, a support structure is manufactured by firstly providing an inner housing and an outer housing and subsequently attaching load carrying members, e.g., struts, each one of which extending between the inner and outer housings. The space delimited by a portion of the inner ring, a portion of the outer ring and adjacent struts may be regarded as a flow guiding passage. The traditional manufacturing method is generally time consuming and costly since it involves a plurality of manufacturing steps.
In order to improve the above manufacturing procedure, US 2004/0103534 A1 proposes that a stator component be manufactured by providing two stator sections, orienting the sections adjacent to one another in a circumferential direction of the stator and interconnecting the two sections by a cover wall in order to obtain a portion of the stator component.
Although the US 2004/0103534 A1 manufacturing procedure generally results in components with appropriate characteristics, from e.g., a structural and/or thermal point of view, there may nevertheless be a need for improvements of the US 2004/0103534 A1 manufacturing procedure.